See Also

Teenage Drinking Continues to Drop

Contrary to common belief, the consumption of alcohol continues
to decline among young people across the United States and fewer
are drinking and driving.

“Bad as it may seem, it’s not nearly so big a problem
as everyone thinks it is,” reports Dr. Robert Foss, senior
research scientist at the Highway Research Safety Center at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “ And it’s
much less a problem than it was 20 years ago.,” he emphasizes.

Dr. Foss says that when people are asked how much underage drinking
is going on, “they almost always way overshoot the reality.”
Correcting the common misperception that a lot of people drink and
drive has proven successful in reducing actual drinking and driving
in the state of Montana. The technique is called the social norms
marketing approach and it is widely used to reduce drinking problems.

Although alcohol abuse among young people continues to drop, it’s
still much too high . We need to continue the use of successful
approaches such as social norms marketing.